Taylor Swift’s Upcoming Album Title Is Very Similar To The Name Of A Group Chat Her Ex Joe Alwyn Once Mentioned Being In, And People Don’t Think That’s A Coincidence
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Last April, pop culture lovers everywhere were left shocked when it was announced that Taylor Swift had split from her boyfriend Joe Alwyn after more than six and a half incredibly private years together.
The two stars began dating in 2016, which was notably around the same time Taylor chose to retreat from the public eye after being branded a “snake” amid her infamous feud with Kanye West (whose name is now Ye) and Kim Kardashian.
While Taylor returned to the spotlight the following year, she continued to protect her new relationship, and in her 2020 documentary, Miss Americana, she said that keeping their romance private had been a joint decision.
She also said that Joe being "balanced" and "grounded" was actually the catalyst for her falling in love with him.
While neither Taylor nor Joe ever discussed their relationship in the media, and they were rarely even pictured together, Taylor did not hide the fact that he was her muse, and gave fans an intimate insight into their relationship through her music.
In many of Taylor’s songs that were released while she was with Joe, she shared her appreciation for the normalcy of their relationship as she sang about their low-key life together. This included spending time with family and friends away from the glare of the public eye.
But when she released her 10th studio album, Midnights, in October 2022, it appeared as though cracks had started to form. In the songs, Taylor expresses her dissatisfaction with her newfound private life, and vows to “reclaim” the peaks of her past popularity and superstardom.
The breakup announcement came six months later, and while Taylor still hasn’t explicitly addressed the split, she has made her feelings toward Joe incredibly clear in the time since.
The apparent reckoning started in May, when Taylor appeared to shed some light on what had happened between her and Joe by releasing a new song called “You’re Losing Me.”
The track is told from the point of view of someone who is desperate for their partner to fight for their relationship, only to be left feeling like an “imposition.” It also suggests that marriage was a contentious topic in Taylor's relationship, with the star singing, “I wouldn’t marry me either.”
The timing of the song’s release left little doubt in fans’ minds that it was about the recent demise of Taylor and Joe’s romance, and as Taylor moved on — first with controversial musician Matty Healy and then NFL star Travis Kelce — many assumed that “You’re Losing Me” was the last we’d hear about Joe.
However, in November, Joe was back in the headlines after Taylor’s longtime friend and collaborator Jack Antonoff randomly revealed that “You’re Losing Me” had actually been written and recorded long before Taylor and Joe’s split.
In fact, Jack went so far as to give the exact date of Dec. 5, 2021, meaning that Taylor had written the heartbreaking lyrics almost 18 months before she and Joe finally brought their relationship to an end.
Suffice to say, this information sparked fresh scrutiny of the British actor, which only intensified when Taylor then took the time to subtly like a year-old tweet that debunked a widely assumed theory that her 2022 love song “Sweet Nothing” was inspired by Joe.
Despite initially telling fans that all of the songs on Midnights are “directly autobiographical,” she suggested that “Sweet Nothing” was actually inspired by Paul McCartney’s marriage to Linda McCartney.
The following day, Taylor’s publicist, Tree Paine, added to the whirlwind when she issued an angry tweet denying speculation that Taylor and Joe had secretly gotten married before their split.
Tree called out popular Instagram gossip blog Deuxmoi for causing “pain and trauma” by doubling down on their claim that a ceremony of sorts had happened in England.
And just days later, Taylor appeared to make thinly veiled digs at Joe in an interview with Time magazine, where she praised her new boyfriend, Travis, for not being afraid to show up for her.
When asked about the seriously public way that her romance with Travis had unfolded, Taylor said, “When you say a relationship is public, that means I’m going to see him do what he loves, we’re showing up for each other — other people are there and we don’t care.”
“The opposite of that is you have to go to an extreme amount of effort to make sure no one knows that you’re seeing someone,” Taylor continued. “And we’re just proud of each other.”
Alluding to the low-key life that she had prior to splitting up with Joe, Taylor added, “Life is short. Have adventures. Me locking myself away in my house for a lot of years — I’ll never get that time back. I’m more trusting now than I was six years ago.”
Taylor also casually changed the meaning of another of her Midnights love songs that was initially thought to be about Joe, instead claiming that “Mastermind” had actually been inspired by the movie Phantom Thread.
Her fans immediately caught on to her apparent changing of the narrative and discussed it on X, formerly known as Twitter, at the time. One person tweeted, “love the track-by-track j0e erasure. first sweet nothing now this.”
“She's on a mission to make every love song post 2017 to be about a third person/thing,” another added. One more joked, “We’re about to find out London Boy is about her neighbour at the rental place.”
Then, when Taylor announced her brand-new album, The Tortured Poets Department, at the Grammys on Sunday, it didn’t take long for fans to pick up on yet another apparent dig at her ex.
As she accepted the award for Best Pop Vocal Album at the ceremony, Taylor said, "I want to say thank you to the fans by telling you a secret that I have been keeping from you for the last two years, which is that my brand-new album comes out April 19. It’s called The Tortured Poets Department.”
In an Instagram post that followed, Taylor included a handwritten note that teased “all’s fair in love and poetry."
Fans immediately started to speculate that this warning, combined with the fact that Taylor went out of her way to specify that the album had been in the works for the last two years, means that the songs are likely about the end of her and Joe’s romance.
And this theory was all but confirmed when people remembered an interview that Joe had done with Irish actor Paul Mescal, where it was revealed that they and Andrew Scott have a WhatsApp group chat that just might have been the inspiration behind Taylor’s upcoming album’s name.
Joe Alwyn and Paul Mescal have a WhatsApp group with Andrew Scott called "The Tortured Man Club.""It hasn't had much use recently," Alwyn says."I feel like we're less tortured now," Mescal quips. https://t.co/CSai4ScQpz pic.twitter.com/veCp1ZdFsD
— Variety (@Variety) December 15, 2022
Variety / Via Twitter: @Variety
In the 2022 Variety interview, Paul asked Joe, “What’s the name of the group chat that we’re in?” Joe laughed before answering, “Tortured Man Club, I think.”
“It hasn’t had much use recently,” Joe added at the time, with Paul agreeing: “No, I feel like we are less tortured now.”
Paul then revealed that it was Andrew who started the group and chose the name, which is believed to have been inspired by the forlorn characters that he, Joe, and Paul have portrayed onscreen.
Suffice to say, many believe that Taylor’s incredibly similar album title is not a coincidence — and it has seriously divided people.
Many were left shook by Taylor’s decision, with one person quote-tweeting the Variety interview and joking, “she never ceases to amaze me…go off Taylor!!!!!!”
Another added, “I love that taylor swift represents the crazy girls so well I feel seen.” Somebody else wrote, “No you don’t understand how much I love pettiness.”
One more said, “Finding out Joe Alwyn had a Tortured Poets Man Club and now the Tortured Poets Department album name makes a lot more sense now.”
But others found the move more questionable, with some asking why Taylor would do something like this after repeatedly expressing her anger at people relating her music to the men she has publicly dated.
They also shared their sympathy for Joe, who has not publicly commented on Taylor in any capacity since their split.
“I really hope she never complains again about people making her music about the men in her life. But she probably will. This is so petty and I really don't buy her ‘I’m happier than ever’-attitude when she does stuff like this at the same time,” one person wrote in a Reddit forum.
One more referenced Taylor’s own past comments amid her feud with Kanye as they wrote, “Joe would very much like to be excluded from this narrative.”
Tortured Poets Department is due for release April 19.
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